Paizo's RPG Superstar 2015 competition is drawing to a close. They're down to their final four competitors, Brian J. Fruzen, Monica Marlowe, Kalervo Oikarinen and Christopher Wasko. These four have each created an encounter, which you can see below. After these are voted on, the final round will have the last two competitors writing adventure proposals for...

Tomorrow, March 4th, is International GMs' Day. GM's Day started right here on EN World back in 2002, has been celebrated on sites across the inetrnet every year since, and is THE day to celebrate your GM, DM, or referree. Once of the biggest events ever GM's Day is DriveThruRPG's annual GM's Day Sale, where hundreds of publishers reduces their prices by 30%. ...

The third in Necromancer Games D&D 5e Kickstarter trilogy (5th Edition Foes and Quests of Doom are already available), Book of Lost Spells has popped up on the Frog God Games website. "Ask any wizard. There’s no such thing as too many spells. This massive compendium of magical mayhem ought to satisfy even the most discerning necromancers and thaumaturgists, and they...

Morrus' Daily RPG News Updates

Paizo's RPG Superstar 2015 competition is drawing to a close. They're down to their final four competitors, Brian J. Fruzen, Monica Marlowe, Kalervo Oikarinen and Christopher Wasko. These four have each created an encounter, which you can see below. After these are voted on, the final round will have the last two competitors writing adventure proposals for Paizo.

Tomorrow, March 4th, is International GMs' Day. GM's Day started right here on EN World back in 2002, has been celebrated on sites across the inetrnet every year since, and is THE day to celebrate your GM, DM, or referree. Once of the biggest events ever GM's Day is DriveThruRPG's annual GM's Day Sale, where hundreds of publishers reduces their prices by 30%. The sale this year starts today, the day before GM's Day, and lasts for one week. So don't hesitate, and March Fo(u)rth for GM's Day!

The third in Necromancer Games D&D 5e Kickstarter trilogy (5th Edition Foes and Quests of Doom are already available), Book of Lost Spells has popped up on the Frog God Games website. "Ask any wizard. There’s no such thing as too many spells. This massive compendium of magical mayhem ought to satisfy even the most discerning necromancers and thaumaturgists, and they aren’t easy to please (especially the necromancers). Weighing in with a total of 708 spells, the Book of Lost Spells is a vital resources for anyone wanting to add a bit more mystery to the magic of Fifth Edition!" The PDF is available right now, and the hardcover can be pre-ordeed for shipping in April.

[UPDATED with info from GF9] Have you had any trouble getting the newly updated D&D 5th Edition spell cards from Gale Force 9? According to at least one customer, there's a little bit of a snafu. EN World member trystero ordered some cards requesting that the order be held until the new, updated cards were available, but was sent the old version instead. He was advised to contact WotC directly when he queried this. Trystero says that "I e-mailed them about my order, placed 8 February, and asked them to hold it until they could fulfill with the revised printings, and they wrote back to say that the updated decks were expected in "late March or early April", and that my order would ship then. But the next day, they sent me a copy of the original, uncorrected Arcane deck. I wrote back to say that it wasn't what I'd ordered, and asked how I could return it."

A new survey is up on the official D&D website. It looks like its covering the classes not in the last survey and the recent Eberron material. WotC also reports on what was learned from the last survey. "For our second survey, we’re focused on the final six classes in the game and the Eberron material that we rolled out in last month’s Unearthed Arcana. If you haven’t looked at that article and want to provide feedback, read it over and come back to the survey later. Even if you don’t have a chance to use the Eberron material in your game, your reactions to it are helpful. You can also skip over the Eberron questions if you don’t want to give feedback on that material."

The mass combat rules have been posted in the latest Unearthed Arcana. "The D&D combat rules in the Player’s Handbook are designed to model conflict between small groups—an adventuring party of perhaps three to six characters against monster groups that rarely exceed a dozen creatures. Combat on this scale keeps the focus squarely on the adventurers. In some D&D campaigns, though, the story might hinge on battles involving dozens or hundreds of monsters and warriors. In this second installment of Unearthed Arcana, we build on the standard combat rules to model conflict on a much larger scale, allowing players and DMs to control whole armies. At the same time, these rules for mass combat allow individual adventurers to lead an army’s charge against an enemy regiment, rally dispirited soldiers to rejoin the fray, or defeat powerful enemy monsters or leaders."

There's no news of an official Forgotten Realms book for D&D (at least not yet), but Forgotten Realms creator Ed Greenwood is forging ahead with his own! Greenwood is writing Forgotten Realms: The Unofficial, Non-Canon, Unlicensed, Utterly Unapproved 50-Year History under the auspices of The Ed Greenwood Group and plans to release it at Gen Con in August this year, and once a week there will be updates on the web where he'll "peek behind the curtain and let you know something else about the untold history of the Realms, things you’ve never known".

Through Gamer Goggles has a video flip-through of Paizo's Lost Treasures book for Pathfinder. It was released last year, and includes "dozens of marvelous treasures, as well as the tools to integrate them into any Pathfinder RPG adventure, including the treasure troves in which they rest."

With the passing of Leonard Nimoy, thoughts of Star Trek roleplaying games sprang to mind. Over the years, there have been several - FASA's version in the 1980s, Last Unicorn Games' version, plus Prime Directive (which also had GURPS and d20 versions), and Decipher's Star Trek RPG (not to mention various tabletop starship combat games, board games, and card games). My own personal history with Star Trek roleplaying games lies back in the 80s with FASA's game and dozens of supplements and adventures, and I still have a soft spot for that game, and it's what inspired me to write my own sci-fi RPG, N.E.W.

Lone Wolf Development makes the popular Hero Lab character generation software, and is also the creator of Realm Works, a campaign management suite. They've sent along an update and preview of the latter in video format, which you can see below. "Brought to you by the creators of Hero Lab®, Realm Works is the tool every Game Master has dreamed about for managing campaigns. Spend less time preparing, more time creating, and focus on sharing the story with your players! Built by a team of experienced GMs, Realm Works can be used with any game system and allows you to create and manipulate your world like never before."

Struggling for a medieval insult? Exhausted the zillion Shakespearian insult generators on the Internet? Try out my own Medieval Insult Generator! You mewling, rotten turtle-lover! A basic insulter, medieval style. Not as florid as some of the Shakespearian ones - keeping it simple for the peasants! Now get to it you tedious, rooting blaggart!

Next Friday, March 6, The City of Brass Kickstarter goes live. If you haven't heard of it yet, The City of Brass is an app designed to help you manage the mechanics of your game, so you can focus on what matters: playing that game.

Last night in the US, the latest episode of The Big Bang Theory sitcom featured more than one reference to the Gary Con convention, and to Gary Gygax. Apparently they mentioned Gary Con twice, and Gygx at least three times. Gary Con is a gaming convention held in Lake Geneva, birthplace of TSR. The convention runs from March 26th-29th this year (tickets here).

Paizo developer Mark Moreland says that "we have big news! You won't believe it when we announce it." He says it in a thread on Paizo's messageboards about Pathfinder Tales novels and their recent publishing deal with Tor, but that's already been announced. Whether the big news is novels-related or RPG-related (or something else entirely) is unknown. What sort of news would be big enough that he'd say we won't believe it when it's announced?

ICv2 has released its quarterly hobby game rankings. No surprises here - Dungeons & Dragons has taken the top spot back after several years at #2, as expected, though how long it can hold it without an aggressive release schedule remains to be seen. Pathfinder follows at #2, and Numenera, Fate, and Star Wars all make showings in the top 5. As always, the charts are based on interviews with retailers, distributors, and manufacturers. This is for Fall/Winter 2014.

There really are so many more useful RPG products out there than just rulebooks and setting modules. Certainly, rulebooks and settings represent the core products of nearly all role-playing game systems, but there’s a ton of other products which are often taken for granted that can really enhance the gaming experience for GM and Players alike. And while the main focus of this review column has historically been looking at “written” RPG products, one cannot deny that game aides and other accessories can be an important part of running and playing in a campaign for many gaming fans. Such products deserve a moment in the spotlight as much as a core rulebook or adventure module, and this particular review aims to address that oversight.

Comixology has a Dungeons & Dragons comic book sale for the digital editions of the official D&D comics for the next week. Each issue, including the current series, is only $0.99 per issue. These include the Dark Sun series of five comics, Drizzt series of five, Cutter series of five, and the Legends of Baldur's Gate series of four.

Fans of the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game have a nifty looking new toy to play with. The Pathfinder Adventure Card Game Community Card Creator allows you to create, print, and share your own cards ideas for PACG. You can create your own cards, purchase them in print, and allow others to purchase them (although not from you). Stock art you can use is provided by Fiery Dragon Productions and Fat Dragon Games.

A few people asked, so I've hunted down all of the D&D 5E fan resource lists I've made (turns out I've made 11 such lists since July 2014). In total I've listed somewhere in the region of 250 blog posts, PDFs, free adventures, backgrounds, monsters, house rules, and more (or 1,250, depending how you choose to count them). I hope you enjoy this series and find it useful! I'll keep doing it as long as folks read it!